Monday, February 20, 2012

Disclaimer: I should not complain about this. I hate snow. Snow seems like a harmless target. Can't hurt snow's feelings, right?

Okay, I'll complain about ONE more thing: The fact that my online grade book program thingy isn't working on my home computer. So I need to go in early tomorrow to input comments for interims. I was trying to be finished early & ahead of the game, so of course something had to go wrong. OF COURSE.

Ugh. I'm glad I'm not the only teacher feeling the strain/stress/exhaustion at this point in the year. Thanks blog land for reminding me that it is okay for me to feel like this, and I'm not alone. A lot of people put on a happy face and look at you like you're crazy when you're being a downer. But not you, blog friends. You listen, leave thoughtful comments, and reassure me that although it is tough right now, it will get better. And I thank you for that!

Anyway, I had a random two hour fog delay on Friday. Fog. In February! My kids were insane. Don't really want to get into it. Tomorrow is a new day/week.

So much Seuss stuff going on right now. Yikes. And copyright drama! I was thinking about making something, but I'm not getting involved. How sad is that? I've found tons of fun stuff though, and I can't wait to share it with my students! I also signed up for a school activity on the 3rd which celebrates Seuss. I don't remember signing up for it. And even if I did, I certainly wouldn't have signed up for it if I would have known it started at 8:30am on a Saturday! But I'm going, and it'll be fun. I gave my grade level chair a craft I found on Pinterest that we are going to do!

No fancy pictures or anything new to report! I'm starting Persuasive Writing this week, and we've just begun fractions. Meaty stuff! Any resources you guys can throw my way would be fantastic!

Must go to bed. I have something called work tomorrow. So quickly you forget when you're knee deep in a three day weekend!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

We kept it simple and exchanged handmade cards. I honestly wanted to do more, but I was paranoid of doing Valentine's stuff too far ahead of Valentine's Day and getting in trouble! We third graders have a test to prepare for you know! Anyway, our classes matched up nicely, and we paired up our students so that they made/got cards for/from the same student. At least that was the plan. Until 1 of my boys was absent, 1 boy moved after I sent her my list, and 1 boy refused to cooperate [as usual]. So I had to reassign a few. But my kids had fun and loved getting stuff from other kids! I wish I took pics. My girls made the cutest cards. A few boys really did, too. But then there were some strange ones. Sorry, Amber! I have a unique bunch this year.

Onto the Teacher Exchange! My gift was for Mor at

I forgot to take a picture before I sent it [typical]. But she put a pic on her blog, so I'll post that! I made her a LOVE wreath, and I included a cute little trinket box. I'm glad she liked it!

My valentine was from someone named Sydney. Sydney, if you have a blog, reach out to me! I'd love to thank you for the gift! She gave me a giftcard to Erin Condren. Truth be told, I'm a Erin Condren virgin. But this gives me a reason to be that no longer. So thank you Sydney!

Today, I went to a Sushi 101 class in Rehobeth! I guess I should have led up to this by saying that I think sushi is weird. I really only like it if it has cream cheese and COOKED meat. No raw meat for me. So I was a lot a little out of my element! But this was a gift to my boyfriend for Christmas. This was the soonest I could book a spot for this class!

[Side note: I love experience gifts! I'd take an experience gift over a material gift any day. But no one even listens to me, so I keep getting stuff!]

So it was a lot of fun. The guy talked to the class for awhile, which got reaaaally boring. But once it was time to actually make it, it was fun! Turns out, I'm good at rolling sushi! My boyfriend's, on the other hand, looked like burritos! But it was fun to try something new, and you got to eat/take home everything that you made! We Boyfriend brought home two take home boxes like this!

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Now I feel that I can acknowledge the title of this post! It's so crazy to think about my life on previous Valentine's Days. But last year on Valentine's Day, I began dating my current boyfriend! So not only is the day a holiday, but it is also our one year anniversary. [Cue Awwwww]

The reason for the title is that we aren't even celebrating on that day. =( The boy works late on Tuesdays, and I'm sure its going to be cuh-razy out with everyone going out to dinner and such. So we're going to hang out, exchange presents, but we're not doing dinner or anything until the following weekend. I'm looking forward to it!

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How are you celebrating Valentine's Day with your students? I'm keeping it SUPER low key. Call me crazy, but I have a TON of teaching to do. So we're not doing anything crafty until after lunch.

We're going to make these simple crafts I found online using skin colored card stock and foam hearts I found at ACMoore that were in packs of 5 for a dollar each.

Nothing crazy. I don't have time for glitter, patterns, and all of that. =( After that, we're having a small celebration. I made it a point to write SMALL CELEBRATION on the notes I sent home, because I don't want obscene amount of food. But I feel obligated to have a party. So I'm assuming a few kids are going to bring in Valentine's.

My gift to the kids are small tote bags, also from ACMoore. They were in packs of a few for a dollar, I forget exactly how many. Good deal though! I'll put a pencil in each one, a paper airplane Valentine that I found, and they can also use these bags to take home their Valentines. Boom, done.

I went all out for Christmas. I made all of the kids mini stockings, put something in them every day for the week leading up to Christmas Break. I think I burnt myself out with that!

That's all I have for you this evening. I have a full work week ahead. YIKES!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

So I'm trying to ween myself off of using Picnic for editing images [because it will be going bye bye soon], so I used Pages [Mac] for this. Much more of a headache. On top of the massive headache that I already have. Gr.

So here's my link up with Farley! I've linked up a few times, and it is definitely something to look forward to each month!

One more thing....

The most unintentionally threatening Valentine's Day card ever written by a child..

Monday, February 6, 2012

OWL PELLETS! Okay, I'm skeeved by everything. I don't let my students tell me when they have loose teeth because I know that leads to them showing me.

Ew.

But when I was in college and did owl pellets during a science training, I thought it was SO cool! It was kind of cathartic, trying to carefully remove the bones from the pellet and piece them together to see what kind of animal was the victim! [But I also find cutting out lamination cathartic. So, I won't blame you if you don't believe me!]

So if you are a third grade teacher and do the FOSS kits, you know what I'm talking about. I mean, the owl pellets are completely kind of irrelevant to the unit. The unit is called HUMAN BODY. And yeah, it is definitely cool to find the bones and you can compare/contrast these rodent bones to human bones, but it is kind of a stretch.

But it's fun.

And its in the kit.

So I do it! Last year [my first year teaching the kit], I found some neat "extras" that integrate technology into all that is owl pellets! Have you ever watched this show?

Dirty Jobs w/ Mike Rowe?

Yeah, me either. I'm easily grossed out, remember! But, when I was searching, I found out they had an Owl Pellet Collector episode! It's gross, they talk a little bit about poo, and they say the word puke. But it is awesome how relevent this makes our activity. It's a job! Not a typical job, but a job! Click the picture above for the 6ish minute video! [I think blogger is letting me link pictures now.]

Another one is the virtual owl pellet!

You click on it to "take it apart!" Great for use on the Smartboard, and it definitely gives the students a better idea of what they are about to do. Doing this before hand is better than going in blind for the kids!

So it was another successful year of the owl pellet for my class. Now I get to teach it one more time for the other class that I teach science for.

Do any of my followers LIVE for math and science and find literacy more difficult to teach? I feel like I'm aloneeeee.

One more quick thing before I go. More giveaways! Like I said, I was off the giveaway train for a while, but I recently won something! I won MyMemories software from Tiffany at

To be honest, I've tried to mess around with the software and IDONTGETIT. I downloaded and installed free backgrounds but can't get to them in the software. Yeah, so I quit messing around with it for the night. I'll try again soon. Any help would be appreciated!

Three more awesome giveaways going on!

Sunny is giving away stamps! They are so cute! Click HERE to check it out and enter!

Ms. Solano is celebrating an important birthday with Erin Condren giftcards. SO generous of her to share the birthday love with her followers!

Hope @ Second Grade Shenanigans is giving away LOTS of credits to her TPT store. She is one of the first blogs I started to follow! And....um, and her store is SO cute! I hope I win I hope I win I hope I win!

I'm exhausted from the Superbowl Sunday which led directly into Conferences. Have a great week! =)

Friday, February 3, 2012

Think back to two posts ago, A Plea. I was at the end of my rope. I took a sick day on Wednesday. I woke up and felt awful. Like, drained. And since I never take off & have a ton of days, I took a sick day. This means my friends had a sub. Well, my sub was apparently an old administrator in the district. I'm new to the area/district, so I had no background knowledge on him. Let's just say that he means business! He was apparently surprised by the group of naughty boys in my room, as well.

Anyway, onto my thankfulness. I came back to work Thursday well rested and ready to power through the rest of the week. I had a data meeting with my administrators during my planning period. I am SO thankful for them. They did something for me that they didn't have to do. They could have just said well, everyone has tough classes, you're doing fine, keep at it. No, they actively did something to help me. Along they same lines, they let me know that I'm doing well, take my opinions/thoughts into consideration, and just listen. I am VERY hard on myself, and they know that. And after talking to them, it just reminds me how lucky I am to have found this fit. Because if I were in a more hostile environment with even MORE pressure, I surely would have cracked by now. This paragraph was sort of vague, and I apologize, but I don't want to go into too much detail.

Now, onto other things. I'm sure you've heard that heaven gained a wonderful teacher, Pam of Vintage Teacher. I followed her blog very early on in my blogging adventures. In her honor, tons of bloggers are offering freebies, as Freebie Fridays were important to Pam! To learn more about her, visit her blog.

So here is my freebie! It is a simple division packet to guide thinking. For RTI, we do a station for 6 days, and this is what I use for my first three days. It includes a frayer model [holla for graphic organizers], and it integrates literature in with math, through the story The Doorbell Rang. Lastly, it allows for creativity when the students get to think of their own "The Doorbell Rang" scenerio! Check out my freebie by clicking below!

While you're there, check out my fractions product. It is currently my only product for sale. And someone bought it! How exciting!

Lastly, check out these giveaways going on. I haven't entered many in a while. Too busy. =(

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

[Well, the title of the post says it all. No need for an explanation, I suppose!]

I'm heading to bed. But I wanted to post quickly about something BIG! [for me at least!]

I just posted my first item on TPT that is not free!

Go check it out by clicking HERE! I still can't link photos to URLs for whatever reason.

It is a set of fractions task cards, much like my free set of multiplication/division task cards. But this set is double the size, and it took a while to make. So I decided to try to sell it. Below is a sample card!

Please let me know what you think, as it is my first for sale item, and I know that I have a lot to learn!